I FOUND MYSELF ON one of the beds in the Infirmary that night. Master Longwei and Constance spoke with a couple of other people I hadn’t seen before. The Viden was one of them.
“How are they doing?” Master Longwei asked Irene, and she shook her head. Her eyes were red rimmed and she sniffed.
Master Longwei nodded as if he knew something. What did he know?
My gaze caught on Julia and Constance standing in the far corner. Professor Pheizer was in there too with a hanky in her hand. All of them had blood-red eyes and it all came back to me.
Lucian was dead.
Pain ached in my chest and it felt as if it was going to break me in a million pieces. I left out another scream.
Footsteps rushed over to me fast and a pair of arms, Constance’s by the sweet smell of her, wrapped around me. “It’s going to be okay, Elena.” She kept whispering those words into my ears. She was wrong. It wasn’t going to be okay. Lucian was gone. He was gone and he would never come back. I would never hear his laughter, see his smile or taste his lips whenever he kissed me, he was gone.
I couldn’t stop this time, and like before they turned into sobs that shook my entire frame. Another scream left my body and I wished it would take the agonizing pain inside my chest away, but it didn’t. It made it worse.
I started to lose it, scratching myself and I could feel my hands in my hair tugging hard. It felt as if the skin around my scalp was going to tear off. I just wanted the pain to stop, but nothing worked.
“Stop that,” Constance said and she grabbed me tight against her chest again. “Shhh, everything will be okay.”
“No, it won’t,” I screamed again through the sobs.
She didn’t say anything, just squeezed tighter.
I fell asleep again as fatigue lingered around me like gravity.
When I woke up I found Constance at the side of my bed, covered with a blanket.
Lucian is dead! The voice inside my head said again, but this time no tears came. It was replaced with nothing. I felt nothing. I felt dead inside and it was better than the pain.
Constance opened her eyes and started to speak. I heard her apology but I didn’t pay any attention to it. It was a feeling that I couldn’t explain. A feeling I didn’t want to let go of.
THE DAY OF Lucian’s funeral had arrived and I didn’t want to go. For the past week, I’d lain on my bed. I didn’t want to eat, although I was starving, and I didn’t want to speak or see anybody.
The door opened and I could hear both my roommates’ sigh.
“Get up! Elena.” Sammy was crouching next to my bed with tears glistening in her eyes but, just like with Constance, it didn’t affect me one bit. “Do you hear what I’m saying? Get up.”
“Sammy? Just leave her.”
“No, Becky. We all lost Lucian. She will never forgive herself for not being there today.” She looked past me at Becky. When her gaze fell back to me her eyes turned soft. “Please, just get up.”
I blinked my eyes.
“Help me, Becky,” she said and I could feel both of them lifting me into the sitting position.
“You need to snap out of this girl,” Becky said.
“Nobody will want me there.” I spoke for the first time the entire week. “It’s my fault he’s dead.”
They gasped, looked at one another and I could feel both sitting on either side of me.
“It’s not your fault. Professor Georgiou killed him,” Becky said and wrapped her one arm around me.
“I trusted him.” I was referring to that son of a bitch that somehow convinced me that I was his rider.
“We all did, Elena.”
“Even me,” Sammy said with shame in her eyes.
“Please, come with us,” Becky pleaded.
I nodded and I somehow got into decent pair of clothes. My friends had taken care of me the past week, making sure I took a shower. Although they tried their best to get something into my stomach, they didn’t succeed.
It was really hard to explain this feeling. It was as if I was there, but at the same time wasn’t.
The carriage I took with Constance, Becky, Sammy and Julia stopped in front of a beautiful Cathedral church. People gathered on the streets blocks from the cathedral where Lucian’s funeral was being held. They carried candles in their hands, some carried their abilities. They had big blown up pictures of him smiling and my heart ached as I saw his face everywhere. Why did he have to come back? Constance’s arm wrapped around me as I stared out of the car’s tinted window. My lower lip quivered again, but the tears still didn’t want to come.
Constance said something, but I couldn’t hear. It sounded so far off, and the sound was hollow, too soft to hear.
The carriage stopped in front of this beautiful white building with a huge cross on the roof. The crowds in front of the cathedral were double the ones we’d seen on the way to the church.
Flowers were everywhere and bouquets littered on the ground.
Inside the pews were full. I’d never seen so many people at a funeral before. His close family and friends, along with the entire Academy were the only ones that could go inside the church.
I could feel everyone’s eyes, some soft and others glaring, blaming me as Becky and Sammy led me into the church. We sat in the back row as I couldn’t move forward. I didn’t want to sit in the front with his Mom and Dad. They’d lost both of their children to people they’d trusted.
His father’s instinct had been right about me the first time he’d found out about the relationship I shared with his son. I was the one that would lead his son to his grave. I should’ve let him go that night at the museum and then maybe he would still be here.
I kept looking at my hands folded in my lap waiting for the priest to start with the ceremony. Plenty of sobs filled the cathedral.
Everyone was crying for the Prince of Tith, the prince of everyone’s heart the way Becky had introduced him to me on my first day at the Academy. I couldn’t cry. This empty numb feeling inside of me made it impossible to shed another tear for the man I loved with my entire heart. He was a man, he proved it every time he’d tried to claim Blake, every time he was brave, like going into the Acker woods. He proved it by dying for me. He didn’t have to prove it anymore.
I looked to the front and saw a part of his coffin. It didn’t look like the coffins in the movies. It looked like some sort of altar; something that seemed extremely breakable.
I looked down at my lap again. Both my friends held my hands as they sniffed and cried softly.
My mind went blank thinking only about flames, about Paul and the cave. Images of Lucian stabbing him, and the sounds of the Elementals crying ran like a morbid song inside my head. That entire day kept replaying inside my mind. How didn’t I see this? All the signs were there.
The next time I paid attention was when I saw Lucian’s coffin being loaded into a wooden raft. We were outside. How we’d gotten outside I didn’t know. Huge crowds gathered around the edge of the lake. I didn’t know if you could call it a lake, though. You couldn’t see the other side, it was just water everywhere.
I looked around me and found more pictures of Lucian and flowers with crosses. Everyone cried, some harder than others, but they shed their tears.
A couple of guys with instruments started to play. One wore a long black coat and had a beard. He started to sing and I was startled by the beauty of his voice. It was a song about goodbyes and death, dying young.
Both Becky and Sammy shook with silent sobs next to me. I wished that I could follow their lead, but nothing came.
The Queen stood by her son’s coffin and she kissed her fingertips and touched the surface softly. King Helmut stood right next to her and the sobs that filled both of them were hard to watch. Still no tears came.
My gaze found Blake standing a couple of paces away from them. He was wearing a black long robe. He stood next to his father and mother and they just stared at the coffin floating on the lake. The wind blew softly and it formed ripples on the water.
Queen Margerite cried out when Lucian’s coffin was a couple of yards away from the edge and I saw King Helmut holding her tight as more screams left her mouth. Sammy shook next to me.
Constance and Julia stood behind me. Becky had left my side and was now in George’s arms who cried with her softly.
The crowds moved away from Blake as he took off his robe.
When he had the space, he transformed into his dragon form and flew toward Lucian’s coffin. A soft pink and red flame set the entire altar on fire and all I could do was gape and stare at it. I watched as it consumed Lucian’s coffin until the only thing that was left was a pulsing heap of fire. Flowers followed and a cannon in the distance blow 20 shots.
As the days passed, those cannon shots stayed with me every night I closed my eyes. I would hear twenty of them and I would see Lucian’s body right before me, being set on fire. I woke up every night screaming that they’d burned him alive.
Becky and Sammy both woke up every time, until it was just Sammy.
I didn’t speak any other words.
The hollow feeling stayed with me and I could see my friend’s faces every time they looked at me. They were worried and pitied me. I didn’t care. I felt numb.
“I can’t do this anymore, Becky,” Sammy yelled as a tear rolled over her cheek. How many days past, I didn’t know. “Look at her.”
“We have tried everything. It’s like she wants to die too. I don’t blame her.” Becky’s voice came out as a whisper.
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do, if it was George, I would be just like that.”
“She needs us, you can’t give up now,” Sammy pleaded.
“I don’t know how to get through to her, Sammy.”
I couldn’t see Becky’s face as she was standing behind me while I lay on my bed. “Come, let’s just go.”
Sammy looked back at me. “Fight this, please,” she whispered as she kissed me on the cheek. She got up from my bed and I could hear the door closing behind them.
For the next couple of days they gave me what I wanted, solitude.
That stupid foretelling; I didn’t give a crap about it anymore. Every time I thought I found what it means, someone dies. This time it took away somebody I knew I couldn’t live without. I know those words in the Book of Shadows will turn blue soon; the sign of an unfulfilled prophesy.
When I opened my eyes again it was day. That much I could tell as the light that tried to come through the closed curtains turned my room a dark orange. The door opened with a loud bang. I didn’t hear footsteps or any voices so I assumed that George and Becky probably had a fight and she was having one of her bitch fits again.
I could see a body wearing faded jeans standing right next to my bed. “Elena, enough!” Blake’s voice yelled at me and my gaze looked up at him. “I thought my sister was overreacting when she said you didn’t want to do anything, but I was wrong. What are you doing to yourself?”
I pushed myself up. Where the hell were you? I wanted to scream it, but those weren’t the words that came out of my mouth.
“Leave me alone!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.
“NO,” he grabbed my arms and pulled me from the bed and I stood on the point of my toes as he held me in front of him. His hands gripped around my arm hard, it hurt but it was a feeling I welcomed. It was better than numb. “Lucian died for you. This is how you repay him?” He shook me hard. “It’s not how I’m going to live. I’m going to fight till the very end, Elena. Because that guy believed something out there would claim me. He went on that mission for me! I’m going to fight.”
Lucian died and you make it about you. “Good for you.”
“You are a selfish little bitch. You didn’t deserve to be his girlfriend,” he spat softly as he threw me back onto the bed and left.
My lower lip shook slightly and I took a huge breath as the pain of losing Lucian crept inside my stomach again. I found my arms tucked around my body. I tried holding myself together as my heart was all over the place, torn to shreds.
I didn’t know how long I lay there replaying Blake’s voice over in my head, but he was right. I was selfish. He’d died for me. I didn’t deserve it.
I got up and took a shower. Not that it helped much, but it was a start.
After the shower I went to the cafeteria. Everyone looked at me as I entered. Becky and Sammy ran over to me and led me to our table.
Quickly, Sammy went and dished up a plate of fruit again and to my surprise I ate it.
I was completely full by the last piece.
“I’m sorry I sent my brother up there. But I’m glad I did,” Sammy said.
The corner of my left lip raised slightly, just enough to pass for a smile.
Becky put her arm on my shoulder. “We’ll take it one day at a time, Elena. One day at a time.”
